Embodiments disclosed herein relate generally to airfoils, and more specifically to airfoil geometry and trailing edge features for wake reduction. Embodiments disclosed herein further relate to methods for fabricating such airfoils.
Airfoils are utilized in many applications such as, but not limited to, aircraft engines, gas turbine engines, and steam turbine engines. In operation, a wake flow may be generated and channeled downstream where it may impinge against an object downstream from the airfoils. Depending on the object, wake flow impingement may generate noise and/or aeromechanical loading. In some known engines, noise may be generated by either a rotating airfoil wake impinging on a stator or rotor component downstream from the rotating airfoil, or the stator component wake impinging on a rotating airfoil downstream from the stator component. Moreover, in some known engines, the wake flow may contain non-uniform temperature distributions. Further, the generation of such wake flow may result in the loss of engine performance and efficiency.
Reduction of the amplitude of the wake flow may reduce the noise and the aeromechanical loading generated when the wake impinges against a downstream object. At least some known methods of reducing the amplitude of the wake flow and/or providing thermal uniformity of the wake flow include increasing the distance between the rotating airfoil and the downstream object. This method, however, increases the cost, size, and weight of the engine, and thereby reduces the efficiency and performance of the engine.